Good news first: Obama is up in the polls in Pennsylvania and Iowa and tied in Minnesota and Nevada. Also, most people blame Republicans for the current economy crisis. Unfortunately, he's pulling staff from North Dakota, Georgia, Idaho and Alaska. That can't be good. [CNN, CNN, CNN]

A new poll shows that, since putting Palin on the ticket, McCain now polls evenly with Obama on the question of who understands women and what's important to us. Obama used to have a 34 point lead. [Politico]

Obama's got a new ad in which he (rightly) accused McCain's health care plan of being a massive program of deregulation, sort of like how McCain used to love the deregulation of financial markets, too. That the kind of change even an NRA member might fear more than an ammo tax these days. [Huffington Post]

Speaking of, the NRA has started running ads against Obama saying that he wants to tax guns and ammo. That's all they got? Taxes? No more "cold dead hands" now that Charlton Heston's hands are cold and dead? [Marc Ambinder]

John McCain's Brazilian mistress is out there talking about him. She thinks he's still cute. We think visualizing John McCain boning is our new weight-loss plan. [Daily Mail]

Biden's having trouble prepping for her debates because —as we've pointed out — Palin's record is so fucking thin he's basically just prepping to debate McCain. Aw, Joe, it's ok, she doesn't much know what she thinks on a lot of issues either. [Politico]

In a completely undeserved casualty of the liberal hatred of Sarah Palin, sales of the Chilean winery Palin's Syrahs have bottomed out in San Francisco. Good wineries should not be made to suffer! [Politico]

Unsurprisingly, George Bush doesn't think CEOs should be financially penalized for running our country's financial system into the ground. But this was the same guy who thought giving the Secretary of the Treasury unlimited powers without judicial oversight was a good idea, so what the fuck does he know? [Think Progress, Huffington Post]